The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope (best fiction novels of all time .TXT) 📕

give her a ge’own now⁠—or a blue cloak;⁠—them lodging-house women is mostly hard put to it;⁠—or a chest of drawers like, for her best bedroom, wouldn’t that make her more o’ my side, squoire?”

“I think she’ll try to do her duty without that.”

“They do like things the like o’ that; any ways I’ll go up, squoire, arter Sax’nam market, and see how things is lying.”

“I wouldn’t go just yet, Mr. Crumb, if I were you. She hasn’t forgotten the scene at the farm yet.”

“I said nothing as warn’t as kind as kind.”

“But her own perversity runs in her own head. If you had been unkind she could have forgiven that; but as you were good-natured and she was cross, she can’t forgive that.” John Crumb again scratched his head, and felt that the depths of a woman’s character required more gauging than he had yet given to it. “And to tell you the truth, my friend, I think that a little hardship up at Mrs. Pipkin’s will do her good.”

“Don’t she have a bellyful o’ vittels?” asked John Crumb, with intense anxiety.

“I don’t quite mean that. I dare say she has enough to eat. But of course she has to work for it with her aunt. She has three or four children to look after.”

“That moight come in handy by-and-by;⁠—moightn’t it, squoire?” said John Crumb grinning.

“As you say, she’ll be learning something that may be useful to her in another sphere. Of course there is a good deal to do, and I should not be surprised if she were to think after a bit that your house in Bungay was more comfortable than Mrs. Pipkin’s kitchen in London.”

“My little back parlour;⁠—eh, squoire! And I’ve got a four-poster, most as big as any in Bungay.”

“I am sure you have everything comfortable for her, and she knows it herself. Let her think about all that⁠—and do you go and tell her again in a month’s time. She’ll be more willing to settle matters then than she is now.”

“But⁠—the Baro-nite!”

“Mrs. Pipkin will allow nothing of that.”

“Girls is so ’cute. Ruby is awful ’cute. It makes me feel as though I had two hun’erd weight o’ meal on my stomach, lying awake o’ nights and thinking as how he is, may be⁠—pulling of her about! If I thought that she’d let him⁠—; oh! I’d swing for it, Muster Carbury. They’d have to make an eend o’ me at Bury, if it was that way. They would then.”

Roger assured him again and again that he believed Ruby to be a good girl, and promised that further steps should be taken to induce Mrs. Pipkin to keep a close watch upon her niece. John Crumb made no promise that he would abstain from his journey to London after Saxmundham fair; but left the squire with a conviction that his purpose of doing so was shaken. He was still however resolved to send Mrs. Pipkin the price of a new blue cloak, and declared his purpose of getting Mixet to write the letter and enclose the money order. John Crumb had no delicacy as to declaring his own deficiency in literary acquirements. He was able to make out a bill for meal or pollards, but did little beyond that in the way of writing letters.

This happened on a Saturday morning, and on that afternoon Roger Carbury rode over to Lowestoft, to a meeting there on church matters at which his friend the bishop presided. After the meeting was over he dined at the inn with half a dozen clergymen and two or three neighbouring gentlemen, and then walked down by himself on to the long strand which has made Lowestoft what it is. It was now just the end of June, and the weather was delightful;⁠—but people were not as yet flocking to the seashore. Every shopkeeper in every little town through the country now follows the fashion set by Parliament and abstains from his annual holiday till August or September. The place therefore was by no means full. Here and there a few of the townspeople, who at a bathing place are generally indifferent to the sea, were strolling about; and another few, indifferent to fashion, had come out from the lodging-houses and from the hotel, which had been described as being small and insignificant⁠—and making up only a hundred beds. Roger Carbury, whose house was not many miles distant from Lowestoft, was fond of the seashore, and always came to loiter there for a while when any cause brought him into the town. Now he was walking close down upon the marge of the tide⁠—so that the last little roll of the rising water should touch his feet⁠—with his hands joined behind his back, and his face turned down towards the shore, when he came upon a couple who were standing with their backs to the land, looking forth together upon the waves. He was close to them before he saw them, and before they had seen him. Then he perceived that the man was his friend Paul Montague. Leaning on Paul’s arm a lady stood, dressed very simply in black, with a dark straw hat on her head;⁠—very simple in her attire, but yet a woman whom it would be impossible to pass without notice. The lady of course was Mrs. Hurtle.

Paul Montague had been a fool to suggest Lowestoft, but his folly had been natural. It was not the first place he had named; but when fault had been found with others, he had fallen back upon the sea sands which were best known to himself. Lowestoft was just the spot which Mrs. Hurtle required. When she had been shown her room, and taken down out of the hotel on to the strand, she had declared herself to be charmed. She acknowledged with many smiles that of course she had had no right to expect that Mrs. Pipkin should understand what sort of place she needed. But Paul would understand⁠—and had understood. “I think the hotel charming,” she said. “I don’t know